


Cor Contritum

by engolras



Category: The Amazing Spider-Man (Movies - Webb)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Character Death, Harry Osborn-centric, Homophobic Language, Multi, Pedophilia, Self-Hatred, Underage Drinking, Unhappy Ending, Unrequited Love, i almost forgot that part, i may write that happy ending in the future but it ends the way it does for now, it was originally going to end happily but this story kind of got away from me, it's only mentioned once but i still think it needs to have a warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-07
Updated: 2015-09-07
Packaged: 2018-04-19 14:07:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4749182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/engolras/pseuds/engolras
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone has a soulmate.  They may die tragically before you get the chance to meet them, but you still bear their name for the rest of your life.</p><p>Harry Osborn spends many nights looking at his blank skin in the mirror, fruitlessly praying for a name to suddenly appear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cor Contritum

**Author's Note:**

> you know, despite how much i rant about how i want harry to be happy, i'm awful to him in this. and i really was planning to have a happy ending but this is where it flowed naturally, so why not keep it?

When the doctor had handed the baby over to its parents an apology had come with it.  The baby was completely bare with no sign of a name to be found anywhere on its body.  There wasn’t the first letter of a name on either wrist, and while it wasn’t too uncommon for a name to appear somewhere else, the baby showed no signs of having its soulmate’s name on any part of its body.

Norman had first told Harry that story when Harry had been five years old and bursting with curiosity as to why his father’s assistant had a name that wasn’t her own on her wrist.  Norman called it The Osborn Curse, which five year old Harry thought was a bit over dramatic, but it soon became apparent that it really was a bit of a curse.  Norman never had any answers when it came to why they’d been cursed to begin with no matter how often Harry asked.

The older he got the more people asked about his soulmate.  Adults cooed over how adorable he was since he seemed so shy about it, and other kids teased him that the name was probably on a really embarrassing place - his butt was the most popular guess - and that’s why he refused to show everyone.  Harry grew to wish that that was the case.

For a while he thought that he’d found someone else who didn’t have a name, but one day it was simply too warm for socks so Peter had kicked his off and the name Gwen Stacy was on his ankle.  Harry had nearly cried when he saw it, but he was ten at the time, and ten years old is practically adulthood and adults aren’t supposed to cry, so he didn’t.  He kicked off his own socks instead, and asked his father hours later why he didn’t have a soulmate.  Norman’s answer hadn’t changed.

He was twelve years old and a month away from going to boarding school when he did cry over the name on Peter’s ankle.  Harry had taken up the habit of reading about soulmates which led to love which led to sexuality, and spending hours lying awake wondering if he’d ever experience the latter two without the first part.  That night, at around two am, Harry lets himself indulge in some self pity because even if Gwen Stacy wasn’t out there somewhere, Peter would always have a name on him while Harry would remain the blank piece of paper that no one wants to face; carrying a torch for someone who’s already claimed.

Despite his promises to the contrary, Harry didn’t keep contact with Peter while he was in boarding school.  He didn’t stop speaking to him immediately; in fact, he actively kept in touch with Peter for the first month.  But soon he started to reply a few days late.  Then a few weeks late.  And then not at all.  Peter stopped sending him emails when Harry stopped responding to them, and Harry tried to push Peter out of his mind.  

If he’d expected an escape from the constant talk of soulmates by going to school in another country, then he’d been sadly mistaken.  Soulmates came up in examples that teachers used, established as the second most important thing in the world (right after money), and were even used as a form of blackmail among the students.  The majority of the boys flaunted their soulmate marks, and those who didn’t were outed by their reluctantness to share whose name they bore.  

Harry was the most secretive of them all when it came to the subject of soulmates, and while flaunting his lack of one would have also led to trouble, hiding that fact didn’t end well for him either.  Word quickly spread amongst his peers, and soon “Harry Osborn” became synonymous with “fag”.  Many of his classmates theorized - within his earshot, of course - whose name he could possibly have.  After all, if he was taking so much care to hide it then it must have been someone in the school.  But that search proved itself to be fruitless as none of the other students had the name Harry Osborn somewhere on their bodies.  The next logical conclusion was that the name belonged to someone much older than him, and so “jailbait” joined “fag” on the list of names Harry was expected to answer to.  

Harry still looked at himself in the mirror each night, checking to see if a name had suddenly appeared on him.  He convinced himself that any name was better than none.  He’d take the name of that guy who’d spat at him the other day, or the name of his history teacher who’d spoken in nothing but innuendos when Harry had failed a test.  As long as he was normal, any name would do.

Some nights he would call his father and leave a message that consisted solely of him saying “Why”, sometimes repeatedly.  The only thing Harry got in reply was a bottle of scotch on his sixteenth birthday.

Harry went back to New York after graduating and spent nearly a week debating whether or not to try to contact Peter.  After getting drunk by himself and staying up until about four in the morning, Harry started to write an email to Peter but he passed out before he finished it.  He woke up to a massive headache and a badly typed draft.  He fixed it up and sent it off before he could change his mind, and got a reply shortly after he found some painkillers.  

Peter was too forgiving for his own good, and Harry made sure to tell him that in his next message.

The two of them met up again in person, and spent that afternoon walking around the city as they caught up with each other.  Harry gave the extremely brief overview of his school experience - it sucked - and Peter begged for details that Harry refused to give.  Peter then gave the extremely brief overview of his school experience - mediocre at best - and Harry begged for details that Peter was willing to give.  He was in the middle of a story about getting his ass kicked by some guy named Flash when Gwen’s name came up for the first time.

“So you met her, then?”

“Gwen?  Oh yeah, but I kinda knew her before she knew me?  I mean, she knew I existed but she didn’t know my name until after I got the black eye of a lifetime.  It was an interesting trip to the nurse.”

Harry met her not too long afterwards and couldn’t find anything to dislike about her.  He spent the night after meeting her reprimanding himself for trying to find something wrong with her.  He was the odd one out, after all.  It was wrong of him to still have feelings for someone he had no right to feel for in such a way.

A week or so after meeting her, Harry told Gwen that he didn’t have a soulmate.  Peter’s aunt had insisted that Peter should invite Harry and Gwen over for dinner, and once Aunt May had a plan in her head, she was dead set on seeing it through.  Harry and Gwen had been left to make small talk while Peter went to help his aunt with the food, and Gwen had casually asked if Harry had had any luck with finding his soulmate.  Harry decided that it was probably time to admit his secret to someone who wasn’t his disappointed reflection, and quietly told her that he didn’t have one.  They were called to the table before she could reply.

They never really spoke of it again since they only really spent time together while Peter was with them and Gwen seemed to understand that Harry hadn’t broached the subject with Peter yet.  Harry felt that deciding to tell Gwen his secret hadn’t been a terrible decision after all; even during the nights when his mind raced through millions of possibilities of what would happen if other people learned that the Osborn family was defective.

Harry wondered if he should ask his father if The Osborn Curse included something other than the lack of a soulmate as he watched Gwen’s casket get lowered into the ground.

Gwen had been on her way to her final interview for a scholarship when her cab got into a terrible accident.  Peter blamed himself because he didn’t offer Gwen a ride.  Gwen’s mother blamed herself because she’d insisted for Gwen to take a cab instead of walking.  All Harry could think about was that one night when he was twelve and tearfully, selfishly wishing that Gwen Stacy wasn’t really out there.

Peter is at Harry’s house about a week later, looking through his cabinets for liquor.  Harry, knowing that drinking your pain away is a very poorly advertised concept, pours a small amount for them both and refuses to let Peter have any more.  Peter says he wants a distraction, and asks Harry to tell him about the woes of his school life.  Harry, who’s forgotten that he’s an absolutely terrible lightweight, spills everything.  That he has no soulmate, that he tried to hide it and got harassed anyway, and that he told Gwen about it.  And because Peter gave him the opportunity to unload everything onto him, Harry takes it because he’s that awful of a person.  He tells Peter about his feelings for him, he tells Peter that he purposefully lost contact with him, and he tells Peter that he still looks for a name every night with the false hope that he isn’t broken.

Peter hugs him at some point - Harry’s really not sure when - and mutters comforting things to him.  Peter says Harry isn’t broken, that he isn’t any less human for not having a soulmate and having feelings for someone despite that.

Harry relaxes in his arms and decides that the least he can do for Peter right now is to pretend to believe him.


End file.
